Credit cards and sports are a great connection. When you look at it as a consumer, the price of a nice set of seats is nothing like it was when Mickey Mantle (my boyhood hero, long ago) played for the New York Yankees. Back in 1958, a bleacher ticket in the Bronx was all of 75 cents, with a box seat running at $4.00. Today, a basic beer is $10, and a ticket can easily cost $100.
But for credit card issuers, sports are a goldmine. The brand gets splashed all over television, as you may have seen in the recent U.S. Open, with Chase. It influences children, who are a feeder group for credit cards, and worship sports figures. Adults bask in reflective glory. And if you watch soccer, you can see attendance is off the charts globally. Sports are fun, competitive, and healthy.
AMEX Replaces Visa with the NFL
In conjunction with the opening of the NFL season tonight, Sports Business Journal is reporting “AmEx taking over as NFL credit card sponsor in ’26.” Some of the highlights of the deal:
- American Express will replace Visa next season as the NFL’s corporate sponsor in the credit-card/payment card category.
- Sources with knowledge of the deal said the terms are seven years for around $910 million, although one source insisted the total deal was “closer to” $950 million.
- Visa’s current NFL rights expire at the end of March, after the new season ends. That means it will have a lame-duck year as an NFL corporate sponsor.
- Visa has been an NFL corporate patron since 1995, making it the league’s second most-tenured sponsor, after Gatorade.
- When Visa signed on 30 years ago, replacing Amex, it was paying around $10 million a year.
- Under the deal expiring after this season, Visa also has rights to associated categories, including peer-to-peer banking, like Venmo and PayPal, which recently joined forces with NCAA football.
- Vis also had the rights to retail banking, which it passed through to Truist, the “Official Retail Bank” of the NFL since 2021.
Wow. From $10 million to $950 million in 30 years. Wouldn’t you like your 401 (k) to perform like that? $100 invested in 1995 would be worth about $2,300 today. Looks like the NFL deal outperformed that by a factor of 4.